The Crew

by Margaret Mayhew

  She had gone pink in the face while he was speaking – the colour starting in two small spots on each cheek and spreading like stains. She looked down at the bundle of cutlery clutched in her hands. ‘That’s all right, sir. It wasn’t anything really . . . just a bit of skylarking. You gentlemen were just enjoying yourselves. Having a bit of fun.’

  ‘It was my birthday, you see.’

  She lifted her head and smiled at him, the sweetest smile he thought he’d ever been. ‘I know it was, sir. You were twenty-one.’

  He smiled back. ‘Well, I suppose it’s a bit of a milestone. Cause for celebration, and all that.’ He wondered how old she was. Not more than seventeen at the most. She looked like a little waif in the starched white apron and cap and the black dress – all at least two sizes too big for her; and her eyes under the fringe of hair were the colour of, of . . . of speedwells, he thought suddenly. Those beautiful little bright blue flowers you saw dotting the grass on a summer’s day.

  He bent down to pick up the knife that lay between them and handed it to her. ‘I say, what’s your name?’

  ‘Peggy, sir.’

  ‘That’s an awfully nice name.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  Yes, the colour of speedwells, that was it. And her hair was as fair as flax. He wished he could remember her sitting on his lap. ‘Well, I suppose I’d better leave you to get on . . . with the tables, and so on.’

  ‘Yes, I must sir. I have to get everything done before the gong.’

  ‘The gong?’ Gongs were medals to him now.

  ‘For dinner, sir. In the hall. It’s my job to ring it, you see. And Mrs Mountjoy gets very cross if I’m late.’

  He’d no idea who Mrs Mountjoy was. ‘Yes, of course. Well, anyway, I’m jolly glad I saw you. Jolly glad.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’ She gave him a little bob curtsey, like the maids used to at home.

  He backed away awkwardly and bumped into a chair behind him, almost knocked the blessed thing over. ‘Perhaps I’ll see you again . . . I mean, I expect I’ll be in for dinner again some time soon.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘I promise to behave better.’

  She smiled at him again. God, what a sweet smile!

  ‘Well, I’ll be off then . . .’

  He glanced back through the glass panel as he shut the dining-room door. She was busy polishing the knife blade on her apron.

  There was an overgrown vegetable patch behind the cottage. Dorothy had noticed the rhubarb first, the long sticks half hidden by nettles, and then she’d discovered a row of gooseberry bushes. There was an apple tree and a plum tree, too, so she’d be able to use the fruit to make puddings for Charlie later on. And if she cleared and dug over the patch, she could try growing a few vegetables. She’d never grown them before. When he was alive, Edward had done the garden and he hadn’t liked her to touch anything. He only grew flowers – mostly dahlias that she hadn’t cared for very much. She didn’t like their gaudy colours or their big, flashy flowers, some of them big as saucers, but his dahlias had been Edward’s pride and joy. After he’d died she’d given the tubers away to a neighbour and, instead, she’d planted roses – pale pink and creamy yellow and pure white ones. Edward would have thought them wishy-washy.

  She’d been wishy-washy, too, the way she’d always deferred to him so meekly, but then that’s what he’d insisted on from the first. It was up to the husband to make the decisions, he’d told her at the very start of their marriage. He knew best, with his greater experience of life, and she could trust him to look after her. It was like being the captain of a ship and he’d steer them away from any rocks. Well, what else could she have done but agree? It was his house, his money, and he was old enough to be her father.

  She’d been just sixteen when she’d met Edward and he’d been close to forty and recently widowed. She’d already left school and got a job in a florist’s in Bromley. She had a knack for doing nice wreaths and they’d given her the job of doing the one Edward had ordered for his wife’s funeral. He’d come in afterwards to pay the bill and had complimented her on her work. Then he’d come in again to order a bouquet for his mother’s birthday and asked specially for her to do it. When he’d asked her out later he’d behaved like a perfect gentleman and he’d seemed so polished and so worldly-wise that she had been flattered and overwhelmed by his attention. And when, in the course of time, he’d asked her to marry him, her parents had urged her to accept. She’d be settled for life with a good, steady man who had a nice safe job in a bank, they’d said. The age difference didn’t matter – in fact, it was a positive advantage in their eyes. Even so, he’d had to ask her three times before she’d accepted him. He had spoken of the deep affection he had for her and of his great esteem and he had spoken so earnestly and so kindly that she had truly believed herself to care for him in return. It was only after they had been married for a few months that she had realized that though she might honour and obey him, as she had promised in the church, she would never be able to love him. But by then, Charlie had been on the way and she had been given someone else to love.

  Absorbed in her digging and her thoughts, Dorothy didn’t hear the knocking on the cottage front door, and when the old man from the farm appeared round the side path, he gave her quite a fright.

  He touched his cap to her. ‘Afternoon, Mrs Banks. ’Nother fine day we’re havin’.’

  He usually started off with the weather, and she always agreed politely with whatever he said. Somehow she felt that it was his weather up here in Lincolnshire and therefore his right to deliver the verdict on it.

  ‘Doin’ a spot of diggin’, then?’

  She leaned on the fork, her back aching. ‘I thought I’d try to grow some vegetables if I can clear all these weeds.’

  ‘You’ll be stayin’ a while longer, then?’

  ‘Yes, several months.’ It was always her answer.

  He nodded. ‘What sort of vegetables were you thinkin’ of?’

  ‘I’m not sure. Potatoes, carrots, beans . . . whatever I can find seeds for.’

  He nodded again. ‘Might have some of those spare. I’ll take a look and come by with them.’

  He’d already given her all the flower seeds for nothing.

  ‘Only if I pay you for them.’

  But he shook his head firmly. ‘An apple or two off the tree’ll do nicely later on. Bramleys, they are. Good cookers. Could you do with a bicycle?’

  She said, surprised, ‘A bicycle?’

  He nodded. ‘That’s right. My wife’s old one. Thought to myself you might make some use of it . . . so’s you could get around easier. It’s a fair walk to the village, and I hear you’re workin’ up at the army camp. I’ll lend it to you while you’re here, if you like. Better’n Shanks’s pony.’

  ‘Well, thank you. It would be very handy. But won’t your wife be needing it?’

  He chuckled. ‘Not where she is, God rest her. Gone to her grave ten years past. And I fancy she’d like you to have the use of it. How’s your boy doing, then?’ He nodded towards the aerodrome. ‘On the Lancasters, isn’t he?’

  ‘Oh . . . he’s fine, thank you.’ How on earth had they found out? She hadn’t said a word to anybody. Or about working at the army camp.

  ‘Gunner, I hear.’

  ‘Yes. Rear gunner.’

  ‘Mrs Dane said he’s a nice-looking lad.’

  ‘Mrs Dane?’

  ‘Runs the post office stores. He called in for sweets, or some such. Talked about you.’

  So it was Charlie himself who had told them – which meant he really didn’t mind if people knew.

  ‘Worries about you, he does, all on your own here. But then I expect you worry about him.’

  ‘I do a bit,’ she said.

  ‘More ’n a bit, I’d reckon.’

  He touched his cap and told her he’d be by the next day and she went back to her digging. She did some more thinking as she worked. The bike and the vegetable seeds were
the old man’s way of trying to help and of showing his sympathy. But she didn’t think that anyone could really understand what it was like. Unless you had a son, or a husband, or a brother – someone you loved more than life itself – in terrible danger, day after day, you couldn’t possibly know. There must be thousands of women all over England, and in other countries, too, who were going through just the same thing. It was a sort of comfort to think that she wasn’t alone.

  She worked on until the sun was going down. The patch was cleared of weeds but the earth still needed a good raking to make it fine enough for planting; her back was too stiff and sore to do any more that day.

  She was putting the fork away in the shed when she heard an engine starting up over on the drome. Then another. And then two more in turn: the four engines of a Lancaster bomber. She knew the sound well enough. Her heart started its wild thumping and she waited by the shed door, listening. After a moment she could hear more engines starting and soon the sound swelled to a thunderous chorus. She thought she could feel the earth shaking beneath her feet – unless it was the trembling of her own limbs.

  They’d been hanging around at dispersal for over an hour. He’d gone through the first check list – Jock crouched at his flight engineer’s panel – then started the engines and run them up: starboard inner and outer, then port inner and outer. Then he’d gone through the second list. All OK. He’d signed the Form 700, accepting D-Dog as airworthy and he’d done an intercom check all round. ‘Pilot to crew, can you hear me? Stew? Piers? Harry? Bert? Charlie?’ ‘OK, skipper,’ from them all in turn. Bert and Charlie had rotated their turrets, whipping their guns up and down, while Harry and Piers checked over their stuff and Stew had fiddled around with the bomb sight down in the nose. They were all set to roll, when take-off was delayed for an hour.

  It was hardly worth it, but they climbed out again and Van took yet another walk round the aircraft – no glycol leaks, tyres OK, Pitot-head cover off or he’d find himself with no airspeed on take-off. Count the engines, a Canadian instructor had once warned him, only half-joking. Make sure some jerk hasn’t taken one away while you weren’t looking.

  The others were lying about on the grass and he joined them and stretched out flat on his back. He lit a cigarette and stared up at the pale evening sky, watching the pink seeping across from the west. Bert was telling one of his stories – this time about a chorus girl and a bishop – and then Stew told one he’d just heard round the station. After the laughter had fizzled out they started laying bets on the op being scrubbed, like the last three had been. Three times in a row they’d gone through the air testing and the briefing and the dressing-up – the whole, jittery sweat of it. They’d done the checks and the waiting around, and when they’d finally been taxiing out, ready to take off, the bastards had gone and scrubbed it. Part of you felt so bloody relieved you wanted to cheer, the other part thought what a stupid waste of effort and that it could have been another one chalked up.

  He thought about Carrie, and he hadn’t thought about her for quite a while, which was a big change. After the accident he’d thought about nothing else. Accident? That was the official verdict, but he’d always blame himself. To the end of his days. If he’d been going slower, not showing off, not had his arm round her, been paying attention . . . if, if, if. If only. People said they were the two saddest words in the English language and they were damned right.

  He lit another cigarette from the end of the last one. Charlie had gone off to take another leak – the kid got real nervous before an op – and Harry was cleaning out his pipe as though his life depended on it. Stew seemed to have gone to sleep, but he knew darned well he hadn’t. They were all wide awake. Waiting.

  He lay back again and went on watching the sky. High above his head a flock of small dark birds headed home for the night; he could hear the faint whirring of their wings. Another, bigger bird flapped over on a solo flight. The pink was deepening to crimson, the light beginning to go fast. He shut his eyes for a while and then opened them quickly when he heard the sound of a van coming along the dispersal track. Scrubbed again? Or on? Either way it was a gut wrencher.

  It was on.

  They scrambled to their feet, butting the cigarettes, and had the all-together-now ritual leak on D-Dog’s tail wheel before they climbed back in, each touching Sam as he passed. Van eased himself into the cockpit seat and fastened his Sutton harness.

  ‘OK, Jock. Let’s go.’

  The four Merlins fired up again. More checks, then Jock gave the thumbs-up to the ground crew for the chocks to be pulled away. D-Dog trundled out of dispersal. Van gunned the outer starboard engine to turn her onto the perimeter track and gave the outer port a quick burst to straighten her up. You were meant to taxi at a walking pace but it was hard to judge so high up off the ground, and Lanes, like spirited horses, could try to run away with you. He kept his hand on the brake lever in case D-Dog got any ideas. He liked the feel of her. All aircraft had their own little foibles and gremlins but D-Dog seemed to have less than most. She’d be good company for the long haul across the North Sea to Emden.

  They wound their way round the peri track to the start of the main runway where he and Jock went through the final list of checks in sequence while waiting their turn in line. Harry was standing in the astrodome, ready to watch for their green light from the control caravan. He’d be able to see the lamp as well, but two pairs of eyes were better than one.

  He held the control wheel with his left hand, right hand free for the throttles, and felt the rudder pedals with the balls of his feet. Off we go into the wide blue yonder . . . well not blue any more, but the idea was the same. And boy, the Lane would go down that runway like a bat out of hell. The poor old Wimpey had always lumbered, but the Lane flew along, tail up, engines roaring like lions. He chewed on a piece of gum, waiting. The aircraft ahead of them was on its take-off run. Any moment now it would be them. He watched the bomber’s dark silhouette rise slowly into the air and then saw it suddenly flop back. It veered off the concrete, tore crazily across the grass like a runaway loco and on into a field of crops where it ground-looped and burst spectacularly into flames. Je-sus Christ.

  Fire trucks and blood wagons were racing towards the crash site when Harry spoke flatly from the astrodome.

  ‘We’ve got a green, skipper. We’re away.’

  He’d seen the signal, too, and hardly believed it. No pause. Press on regardless. Step over the corpses. On with the war. He took D-Dog out onto the runway and lined her up, throttles to zero boost, bouncing her gently against the brakes.

  ‘Pilot to crew. Taking off.’

  Brakes released with a great hiss, engines howling, D-Dog surged forward. The small group of people by the control tower were waving hard – harder than ever. As soon as he could, Van got the tail off the ground so it was easier to keep her straight. Jock’s arm was pressed firmly against his arm, his hand ready to take over the throttles. He kicked the rudder to straighten a slight swing to port.

  ‘Full power, Jock.’

  ‘Full power, skipper.’

  Timed to the split second, Jock’s hand slid beneath his onto the throttles so he could take the control column in both his own, ready to haul her off. They were eating up the runway real fast, and out of the corner of his eye he saw the crimson pyre of fire flash past. He brought the wheel back gently. Sweat was forming under his helmet and mask. Come on, D-Dog. Don’t screw us too. Get up. Get up. Fuel, bombs, incendiaries, ammunition, men . . . the whole damn massive load. Be a good Dog and get us up, for pity’s sake. He pulled back harder on the wheel and they soared into the evening sky.

  ‘Undercart up, please, Jock.’

  ‘Undercart up, skipper.’

  His voice and Jock’s had sounded completely normal, as though nothing whatever had happened. He swung the control wheel left and looked down the long length of the port wing to the conflagration in the corn field below. Fuel and incendiary bombs were blazing away merrily, flames le
aping high into the air. Except for Piers behind his curtain, they could all see it clearly: Jock beside him, Harry in the astrodome, Stew in the front turret, Bert in the mid-upper and Charlie at the rear, with the best view of all. But as they climbed on up and up above the burning bomber, nobody spoke a word.

  Dorothy saw the fire from the cottage windows and ran outside into the front garden. She could hear the fierce crackling of the flames and the sound of ammunition exploding. And smell the smell of burning flesh.

  The old man came down the road early in the morning. He was wheeling a lady’s bike that looked as old as himself – a big black rusty thing with a large wicker basket strapped onto the handlebars. He leaned it against the post of the front gate. ‘Needs a bit of a clean and some oil, but I thought your lad might see to that for you.’

  If he’s still alive, she wanted to say, but the words wouldn’t come. She couldn’t speak her anguish aloud. All night she had lain awake, certain that it would be Charlie’s plane that had crashed. Hideous images of him trapped in the rear turret and being burned alive had come before her eyes, however much she had tried to stop them. She could see him struggling, hear him screaming, see the flames devouring him . . . At dawn she had gone out into the front garden again. The flames were gone and it was quiet, but she could still smell the dreadful smell.

  Charlie had once told her that he’d asked the station padre to come and see her if anything happened to him. If he got taken prisoner, or anything, he’d said casually, but she’d known what he really meant. She’d get a letter, too, he’d added, but that might not be until later.

  When nobody had come to the cottage first thing, she’d allowed herself to hope just a little. No news was good news. Until somebody came to tell her that Charlie was dead, he was alive. If nobody came at all then everything was all right.